Improve wording of the drop_bounds lint

compiler/rustc_lint/src/traits.rs

@@ -18,23 +18,27 @@ declare_lint! {
     ///
     /// ### Explanation
     ///
-    /// `Drop` bounds do not really accomplish anything. A type may have
-    /// compiler-generated drop glue without implementing the `Drop` trait
-    /// itself. The `Drop` trait also only has one method, `Drop::drop`, and
-    /// that function is by fiat not callable in user code. So there is really
-    /// no use case for using `Drop` in trait bounds.
+    /// A generic trait bound of the form `T: Drop` is most likely misleading
+    /// and not what the programmer intended (they probably should have used
+    /// `std::mem::needs_drop` instead).
     ///
-    /// The most likely use case of a drop bound is to distinguish between
-    /// types that have destructors and types that don't. Combined with
-    /// specialization, a naive coder would write an implementation that
-    /// assumed a type could be trivially dropped, then write a specialization
-    /// for `T: Drop` that actually calls the destructor. Except that doing so
-    /// is not correct; String, for example, doesn't actually implement Drop,
-    /// but because String contains a Vec, assuming it can be trivially dropped
-    /// will leak memory.
+    /// `Drop` bounds do not actually indicate whether a type can be trivially
+    /// dropped or not, because a composite type containing `Drop` types does
+    /// not necessarily implement `Drop` itself. Naïvely, one might be tempted
+    /// to write an implementation that assumes that a type can be trivially
+    /// dropped while also supplying a specialization for `T: Drop` that
+    /// actually calls the destructor. However, this breaks down e.g. when `T`
+    /// is `String`, which does not implement `Drop` itself but contains a
+    /// `Vec`, which does implement `Drop`, so assuming `T` can be trivially
+    /// dropped would lead to a memory leak here.
+    ///
+    /// Furthermore, the `Drop` trait only contains one method, `Drop::drop`,
+    /// which may not be called explicitly in user code (`E0040`), so there is
+    /// really no use case for using `Drop` in trait bounds, save perhaps for
+    /// some obscure corner cases, which can use `#[allow(drop_bounds)]`.
     pub DROP_BOUNDS,
     Warn,
-    "bounds of the form `T: Drop` are useless"
+    "bounds of the form `T: Drop` are most likely incorrect"
 }
 
 declare_lint_pass!(
@@ -65,8 +69,8 @@ impl<'tcx> LateLintPass<'tcx> for DropTraitConstraints {
                         None => return,
                     };
                     let msg = format!(
-                        "bounds on `{}` are useless, consider instead \
-                         using `{}` to detect if a type has a destructor",
+                        "bounds on `{}` are most likely incorrect, consider instead \
+                         using `{}` to detect whether a type can be trivially dropped",
                         predicate,
                         cx.tcx.def_path_str(needs_drop)
                     );